2013-04-01

the homecoming

»Where it all began« is what they say at Hot Rod Magazine. Looking at its latest issues it sometimes feels hard to believe that this saying is true. But it is. Let's just face the fact that Hot Rod Magazine is 65 years old. And with 12 issues a year, you end up with – well just do the math – like yeah, a whole fuckin' bunch of paper filled with hot rod and custom history.

So, for their 65th anniversary they came up with a great idea: let's throw a birthday party! How innovative, you say? Well they didn't just want to celebrate on their own at a strip club in Las Vegas. They decided to do a car show. Not just a birthday cruise. A full blown car show at Pomona Fairplex. And they invited all of the cars – hot rods, customs, gassers, lakesters, dragsters, you name it – ever featured on the pages of Hot Rod Magazine.

Walking through the buildings at the show was pretty much like a walk down memory lane – even if it wasn't my personal memory but rather what I had memorized from books, websites and old magazines. Amazingly too, not so many people seemed to have heard about the show. So it wasn't as packed as one would have it expected to be. But who would complain? Here are just a couple of my favorites. Enjoy!